Hot dry summer perfect for wine-growers

While this hot dry summer has caused problems for cattle farmers, it means a most bountiful harvest for wine-growers, who are also looking to Tuscan-style quality this year.

Speaking in his role as Commissioner of the Association of Wine-Growers of the Central Swiss Cantons, Beat Felder was ecstatic as he was able to report that the grape harvest in Zug could be the best ever.
“We enjoyed conditions like in Tuscany,” he said, “with warm sunny days since April and just the occasional day of rain. I can see some connoisseurs will be pleasantly surprised with the wine we will be able to produce this year,” while admitting that vines younger than five years old will have suffered.

“Just as there are lean years, there are fat years, too,” said Konrad Burch, president of the of the Steinhausen Wine-Growers’ Cooperative, who can be seen in the photograph testing the quality of his grapes. He is expecting to be able to produce twice the usual quantity of wine this year, which he puts down in part to the spring frosts of last year. It was these frosts of 2017 which led to limited production but good quality, “This year we can enjoy both top quality and bountiful yield,” added Felder, who predicted that this year’s wine could be as good as it was in 2003.

Delighted with this year’s conditions, too, was small-scale wine-grower Philipp Hotz of Deinikon. “Tests indicate the sugar content of the grapes is already very high; we are just waiting for them to reach the right level of ripeness before harvesting them,” he said.

Another advantage of the hot dry summer was the fact that fewer pests were evident. “There are more wasps about. Not that they damage the grapes, but they can be a nuisance at harvest time,” he said.

Felder said that white grapes were ready for harvesting now, and that the Solaris ones had already been safely gathered in, the Silvaner and Johanniter ones earmarked for picking next. He went on to say that climate warming was actually an advantage for grape production in Zug. “It will do the growers good to be able to fill their cellars again,” he said. “In the case of wine,” he added, “demand is always greater than supply.”